A few years ago it was necessary to have a certificate of confession before holding any office under the government, and the certificates were bought and sold for tenpence! Of course the greatest ignorance exists regarding the Scriptures. People confound the legends of modern times with the sacred history, and have as much faith in the one as the other. Every one has read Borrow’s extraordinary adventures in Spain, and will recall the story of the Alcalde, who after discoursing learnedly about Bentham, Lope de Vega, and Plato, took up the New Testament and asked, “What book is this?” Upon Borrow answering him he said, “Ha, ha! how very singular!--yes, I remember. I have heard that the English highly prize this eccentric book. How very singular that the countrymen of the great Bentham should set any value upon that old monkish book!” Mariolatry is carried to the same excess one sees in Italy. Ford, in his _Gatherings_, gives a striking instance of this in describing the execution of the robber Veneno. “The criminal exclaimed _Viva la religion! Viva el rey! Viva el nombre de Jesus!_ All of which met no echo from those who heard him. His dying cry was, _Viva la Virgen Santisima!_ At these words the devotion to the goddess of Spain broke forth in one general acclamation, _Viva la Santisima!_”
In the reign of Charles III., 1759-1780, a law was enacted, requiring a declaration upon oath of a firm belief in the Immaculate Conception, from everybody taking his degree at the university, or being admitted into any corporation, civil or religious, or even into a mechanic’s guild. The Virgin’s altars, images, robes and jewels, are gorgeous beyond description. At her name both priest and congregation made reverence. It is to her altars that the people flock. It is she who is represented as the guide and ruler of the Church, and the intercessor between God and man. To her are addressed most of the hymns and prayers by which indulgences are obtained. There is one hymn in a little book of prayers called the _Novena_, the repetition of which will procure more indulgence than a year of rigorous penances. This indulgence clears you from penance, or the indefinite consequences of neglected penance in purgatory; and if by a certain number of litanies, rosaries, and hymns, so much indulgence is gained, who would fast or otherwise do penance?
